Battering the blind - Attack on one of their own highlights plight of the disabled community

Members of the blind community have expressed outrage at the stabbing of a visually impaired elderly man inside Coronation Market in downtown Kingston over the weekend, expressing their frustration with the general treatment they face from vendors and other members of the public.

According to reports, the elderly man, 58-year-old Clive Mullings, was walking through the market when he accidentally bumped into a lady, causing one of the trays of eggs she was selling to overturn. An argument ensued, after which she hit, then stabbed him. She later fled the scene.

"Personally, it is just sad. It really cut me up. Someone had said they would have paid for the eggs, but the woman still decide fi hit and stab the guy. I definitely think that if it wasn't a visually impaired person, she wouldn't have done it. You shouldn't be so dark," an upset Shavane Daley, blind since he was 14 years old, told The Gleaner yesterday.

"I think that blind man was just bad lucky that day. To better put it, I think that woman is just a coward. See it deh now, she deh pon di run, and me know seh she never want that. I heard she had a kid and she took up the kid and ran. Nobody in Jamaica seems to be thinking anymore, they just act."

MORE PUBLIC EDUCATION NEEDED

Jason Ricketts, also visually impaired, has called for more public-education programmes to sensitise persons on how to properly treat with blind people.

"Everybody I come across say they are very upset. I don't know if it was the same lady who did the stabbing, but a couple of weeks ago, one of my fellow blind colleagues said they were walking through the market and a lady's remark was that she was going to stab up one a dem blind somebody yah. He was passing and overheard and took evasive action," he said.

"Where I live, there is this old man on the road who is always cursing every time he sees me. Him always cuss and say why blind people come pon di road and how dem fi tie we up and fling we weh. Mi nuh do nothing to this man. People have some strange views about blind people and disabled people in general. People just need public education about disabled persons."